


Delectable Relations

by rhodrymavelyne



Series: More Than a Jinrou [20]
Category: Shiki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:13:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29850312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Ambrose Lee is offering something Natsuno would have given anything for when he was trying to save Tohru-chan. It’s still an offer he’s interested in, except Ambrose Lee seems far more interested in drinking Natsuno’s blood (and other things) than getting to the point. This doesn’t make Natsuno, let alone Toshio and Akira likely to believe a word he’s saying.
Relationships: Ambrose Lee/Ozaki Toshio, Ambrose Lee/Yuuki Natsuno, Mutou Tooru/Yuuki Natsuno, Ozaki Toshio/Yuuki Natsuno, Shimizu Megumi/Yuuki Natsuno, Tanaka Akira/Yuuki Natsuno, Tatsumi/Yuuki Natsuno
Series: More Than a Jinrou [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/473263
Kudos: 4





	Delectable Relations

**Author's Note:**

> This is Part 20 of my multi-part Shiki fanfiction More Than a Jinrou. It takes place after After the Explosion and in the same universe as Too Soon, Too Late. I don’t own Shiki, but its characters and the situation presented by the anime still haunt my imagination…

Natsuno closed his eyes, felt the night wind upon his face. Heard his own desperate cry to Tohru-chan, why, why can’t we co-exist? Surely there were people willing to share blood with you. 

Only to get Tohru-chan’s equally desperate response that it didn’t work that way. If shiki could resolve their hunger in such a fashion, they wouldn’t have to attack people. 

Natsuno had never been able to accept that. He’d died unable to accept that. 

“Why are you telling me this now?” Natsuno whispered. “If you’d done it sooner, maybe an entire village wouldn’t have burned!” 

“Why do you care?” Ambrose Lee spoke with surprising gentleness. “Your father forced you to live in that village. You never wanted to be part of it.”

“Maybe I didn’t want to be part of it, but I was.” Natsuno wouldn’t say his true reasons for caring. Tohru-chan. Akira. Kaori. Toshio. 

A part of his brain wanted to whisper Tatsumi. Yes, the other jinrou had been his enemy. Once they would have killed each other. Only Natsuno could no longer regret that he’d ever met the older jinrou, ever tasted his blood, felt Tatsumi’s lips pleasure him, instructing him to pleasure others. Felt the older jinrou inside, filling him with with a hard, throbbing passion which had brought Natsuno back to life, just as Tatsumi said he would. 

If he hadn’t crossed Tatsumi’s path, if he hadn’t been his enemy, he never would have loved him. 

Oh, no, it couldn’t be. 

Yes. 

He loved Tatsumi. Loved him as much as he had anyone else in his life. 

When had it happened? How could he have let this happen?

He felt the brutal pressure of the other jinrou’s mouth turning gentle, the tender way Tatsumi had touched him in the shower. The way he’d told him, wet and naked in his arms that he was too kind. 

No one had ever said this to him before. Not even Tohru-chan. Oh, he might be cool, clever, capable, but kind? Tatsumi was the first person to see him thus. He’d seen kindness in Natsuno back when they’d been enemies. 

It felt like he was betraying Tohru-chan’s memory, along with everyone else who’d died. Only Natsuno knew Tatsumi had lost and been scarred by events in Sotoba along with the rest of the survivors. 

As Toshio had said, the battle had no victors. 

“I’m sorry, Natsuno.” A cold hand touched his cheek, his chin. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save Sotoba.”

His fingers were so silky, so smooth. They seemed to stroke away Natsuno’s unease around this man. He found himself leaning into the caress for just a moment. 

One of the fingers snake down to run itself over his lips, parting them. Natsuno realized he was sucking on the man’s fingers in an almost erotic way. 

Warm human hands pulled him back. Natsuno gasped, feeling limp, almost like he had when Tohru-chan sank his fangs into his neck for the first time. 

“What was that?” Natsuno shook his head, tried to shake off a weakness he hadn’t felt since he was human. “I thought we were relatives!”

“Seldom have I had a more delectable relative.” Ambrose Lee lifted his fingers to his lips and sucked on them slowly. “Hmm, you taste like fresh air, sunlight, and something sweet ripening on the vine. How I’d love to sink my fangs into you!” 

“I knew it,” Toshio growled. He pulled out a vial of something which might have been holy water. “Birds of a feather, eh Ambrose Lee? I’m guessing Shinma Shigure was a kindred spirit.” 

“Bastard!” Akira spat. “You don’t just feed on humans, but your own kind?”

“Oh, I’m not sure how alike Natsuno and I are. He’s far more vibrant and alive, offering the same vibrancy to his victims.” Ambrose Lee offered Ozaki Toshio a leer. “I, alas, tend to drain mine of their vitality, whether I drink their blood or feed on them via sex.” 

“Just now you were feeding off me.” Natsuno breathed hard, forcing the words out. “You can do it with just a touch.”

“Just a touch, but it still leaves my victims feeling drained.” Ambrose Lee chuckled a bit at his own joke. “Happily I’m capable to detaching myself. Blood doesn’t always bind me to my victim.”

“Meaning you can let your victims go.” Natsuno let the implications of this sink in. “You don’t have to keep coming back to them until you kill them.”

“While you can feed in such a way, you strengthen your victim.” Ambrose Lee examined Ozaki Toshio from head to toe. “I’m guessing some of your wrinkles have vanished, eh, sensei? You have the scent of a smoker, yet I hear the clear, steady sound of your breathing. You lack the off-key rattle a smoker develops. No longer craving cigarettes, are you?” 

Ozaki Toshio smiled with dangerous pleasantness at Ambrose Lee. “You seem to have all the answers. Why not return to the one that really interests us?”

“Yeah, what’s all this about letting your victims go?” Akira chimed in. “You called it detaching yourself.” 

It was Natsuno who answered, not Ambrose Lee. “Once a vampire bites a particular human, there’s a bond between them. No other vampire can touch that human.”

“Oh.” Akira’s eyes were round, but he didn’t look like he understood.

“It’s why once Tohru-chan bit me, Shimizu backed off, even though she’d been lurking outside my window night after night.” Natsuno swallowed. “Once he bit me, Tohru-chan could stop. He showed up at my window, night after night. Each night, I let him in.”

Only I’d been willing. Natsuno didn’t voice this thought. I let him bite me from the beginning, hoping I could somehow convince him to run away with me. This solution of the little drink might have saved both of us.

Natsuno would not cry. He refused to let the tears fall, not in front of Ambrose Lee. 

“This was why Megumi kept coming after our father.” Akira spoke in a hushed whisper. “She couldn’t stop. He couldn’t resist.”

“Once bitten a human can’t resist. They start craving the bite.” Toshio spoke with the cool authority of the village doctor he’d once been. “They open their doors and windows to the vampire, inviting them to come in. They allow the vampire to drink from them until they’re too weak to refuse.”

“You speak with such authority, Ozaki Toshio-sensei!” Ambrose Lee chortled as if Toshio had just told the funniest joke in the world. “Ah, the tragic fate, the inevitable weakening of the poor victim! He’s doomed!”

Ambrose Lee moved before Natsuno saw him or could stop him. He got between Natsuno and Toshio. 

The elder vampire gripped the human doctor’s chin in his pale fingers. “You don’t look doomed, sensei, or weak. You’re positively glowing.” He leaned a little closer. “Since Natsuno is…shy…about being touched by a relative, maybe I should touch you instead? See just what’s so special about you?”

A red haze swam in front of Natsuno’s vision. He growled, leaped at Ambrose Lee. 

The elder vampire looked as surprised as the young jinrou when Natsuno grabbed him by his throat, pried his fingers loose from Toshio. 

“Don’t you ever touch him.” Natsuno gave the elder vampire a shake. “He’s mine.” 

“Haven’t shaken off the blood bond between vampire and victim, have you?” Ambrose croaked out the words, but he was smiling. “Only I guess you’ve found a new way of feeding upon him.”

He lifted his hands, hanging limp beside him to touch Natsuno’s face. 

All the strength ran out of the younger jinrou’s arms. He could no longer hold onto Ambrose Lee.

“Much better.” Ambrose reached out to grab Natsuno in turn. “Child, you are in dire need of a lesson in manners. Not to mention you’ve made me quite hungry.” 

He opened his mouth, exposing his fangs and lunged at Natsuno. The young jinrou only managed a choked gasp when Ambrose Lee bit him.

**Author's Note:**

> Ambrose Lee is not an original character. He’s the vampire who killed Sunako, making her rise as a shiki in the anime. He had a single appearance in Sunako’s flashback of being a mortal. His name was never mentioned, so I made up this one. Ambrose probably made it up himself. I gave him the familal connection to Natsuno because of…hair. This vampire’s hair reminded me of Natsuno’s father’s hair, despite being a different color. Talk about crazy sources of inspiration! :)=


End file.
